I hope I'm not getting annoying with these updates :D (they might become less frequent soon, so I'm trying to post more now because I have so many ideas)
Oh, I forgot to thank a reviewer in my last chapter:
Emmylianaa22: thanks for another kind review, I'm glad the humour in those chapters worked, you'll be seeing more of that soon and don't worry, your English is fine :)
So without further ado, enjoy!
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7: Fairytale
Then came a faint moan from the end of the Chamber. Ginny was stirring. As Harry hurried toward her, she sat up. Her bemused eyes traveled from the huge form of the dead basilisk, over Harry, in his blood-soaked robes, then to the diary in his hand. She drew a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to pour down her face.
"Harry — oh, Harry — I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn't say it in front of Percy — it was me, Harry — but I — I s-swear I d-didn't mean to — R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over — and — how did you kill that — that thing? W-where's Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary —"
" It's all right," said Harry, holding up the diary, and showing Ginny the fang hole, "Riddle's finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. C'mon, Ginny, let's get out of here —"
"I'm going to be expelled!" Ginny wept as Harry helped her awkwardly to her feet. "I've looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I'll have to leave and — w-what'll Mum and Dad say?"
Rowling J. K., Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, PDF, Chapter 17: The Heir of Slytherin, pages 207-208
Harry stared at her in disbelief. "Ginny, you almost died! Your parents will be happy you're still in one piece! They won't care what happened."
"But I do! And the p-professors will! They'll blame me, not a diary!" she shrieked, growing more and more desperate.
"Ginny, stop it –"
"And they'd be right!" she suddenly gasped, as if it had just dawned on her. "They'd be right! He might've made me do this, but I was the one who trusted him! Oh, Harry, it's all my fault!"
Harry tried to pat her shoulder, but it ended up more like a hard tap than a comforting gesture.
"No, it's not, Ginny. I trusted him myself for a while, you see. You didn't do all of those awful things. Riddle did. He...he's dead now. Gone forever. I promise."
Ginny sniffed, wiping the tears that kept flooding down her cheeks.
"How do you know that?"
"Because I killed him," Harry stated simply, showing her the Basilisk fang.
It was only now that Ginny noticed the hole in the diary. She drew closer, her nostrils filling up with the metallic smell of blood from his robes and the fang.
She took hold of the diary with shaking hands, touching the emptiness left by the sharp tooth.
"And here's what helped me with the basilisk," Harry added, revealing the sword.
Her eyes widened significantly.
"You slew a basilisk with a sword?"
"Fawkes brought it to me in an old Sorting Hat," he confessed, realizing how absurd that actually sounded.
Ginny was completely amazed.
Hearing the boy she had been secretly in love with for so long say he had murdered the nightmare of her dreams brought a strange, surreal sensation to her stomach that was not altogether unpleasant. It was like in those enchanting fairytales of knights and princesses her mother used to read to her. But at the same time it wasn't like that at all, because there was a side to this story that was not so pleasant. A side that made her stomach churn instead of flutter. Her hero had slain a basilisk and had killed a daemon (for she believed Riddle to be one), which meant he had had the power to do so, and power to someone who had been under a spell for such a long time was terrifying.
Ginny shuddered.
Deep down she did not want to admit to herself or even grasp the fact that there was a sinister resemblance between the boys. Because the moment she had set eyes on young Tom Riddle she had felt instant infatuation. Not only did they look alike but there was a strange aura of mystery and beauty to both of them.
Only one had ended up saving her, while the other had tried killing her and that made all the difference.
"I can't believe you did all of that! That's amazing! You were so brave! I –" she sputtered, her eyes still clogged with tears, "I would've probably frozen up!"
"Fawkes actually did a lot of it," Harry confessed, looking down embarrassed.
"Who?"
"I'll explain later," he said, taking her hand impatiently. "Come on. We have to get out of here."
Ginny looked around and shuddered again. The giant serpents whose mouths lay open like traps made her nauseous. Oddly enough, she was not frightened, only disgusted.
She ran after Harry out of the Chamber, gasping for breath, jumping over the coils of the dead basilisk away from the echoing gloom, back into the tunnel.
Fawkes was waiting for them, hovering in the Chamber's entrance, and now Ginny could clearly see it was Phoenix bird. Her brother Charlie had spoken of them many times, but only she had appeared to be interested.
Ron yelped with joy when he saw her safe and sound.
"Ginny, you're okay! I can't believe you're alive! Oh, thank Merlin!"
Harry didn't have time to explain about the bird and the sword; he only mentioned they were Dumbledore's and hoped Ron would be satisfied with this answer until they could talk in private.
He was only mildly surprised that Gilderoy Lockhart had lost his memory. It was only fitting somehow that a fraud would end up fooling himself.
But he might've had a more appropriate reaction had his mind not been filled with images and sensations of his encounter with Tom Riddle. There was a bitter taste in his mouth and part of him felt he had been robbed of something important, an innocence already crumbling.
"You all right, Harry?" Ron asked worriedly.
"Yeah, I just feel a bit light-headed, is all. And I want to get out of here, except I don't know how –"
It was then that he noticed Fawkes swooping down and fluttering his long golden tail feathers in front of him.
Harry's eyes widened in understanding.
"He looks like he wants you to grab hold…" said Ron, looking perplexed. "But you're much too heavy for a bird to pull up there —"
"Fawkes," said Harry, "isn't an ordinary bird." He turned quickly to the others. "We've got to hold on to each other. Ginny, grab Ron's hand. Professor Lockhart —"
"He means you," said Ron sharply to Lockhart.
"You hold Ginny's other hand —"
Harry tucked the sword and the Sorting Hat into his belt, Ron took hold of the back of Harry's robes, and Harry reached out and took hold of Fawkes's strangely hot tail feathers.
An extraordinary lightness seemed to spread through his whole body and the next second, in a rush of wings, they were flying upward through the pipe. Harry could hear Lockhart dangling below him, saying, "Amazing! Amazing! This is just like magic!"
Rowling J.K., Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, PDF, Chapter 17: The Heir of Slytherin, page 209.
Ron instantly rolled his eyes at that, although his entire face had gone white from being lifted up so high, but Ginny looked around her almost in a daze. She felt her guilt and misery slowly but surely seep away as higher as they got, until there was only her and the knowledge that she was finally safe and free.
And despite the fact that she still couldn't stop the flow of tears, a small smile of wonder broke through.
"No. It's better than magic," Harry said, looking down at Ginny with a small smile of his own.
